


A Thousand Small Ways

by VeraBAdler



Series: October 2019 challenges [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Domestic Fluff, M/M, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-16 14:47:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20846579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeraBAdler/pseuds/VeraBAdler
Summary: Cas wears Dean down, in the best possible way.Prompt 1: RingPrompt 2: Welcoming Autumn (end of harvest, leaves, PSL)





	A Thousand Small Ways

Every day, Cas does for Dean.

(Cas also _does_ Dean, frequently, and well. But that's not what this little story is about.)

Cas does for Dean in a thousand small ways. He gets into their bed first in the evenings, and warms Dean's side up for him before moving over to his own. He places Dean's diner order while Dean hits the head, and he always remembers to ask for extra onions on the burger. He notices when Dean's shoulders are creeping up around his ears, and lays his arm along the back of Baby's seat to rub and relax his boyfriend's clenching neck.

Love notes in his duffel. Hearts and silly faces on steamed-up mirrors. Dean's favorite candy bar thrown in on the tab when Cas goes inside to pay for the gas while Dean stays out at the pump. 

(The absolute best road head of Dean's fucking life. But that's not what this little story is about.)

Cas does for Dean in a thousand small ways, and every time, it blows Dean's freaking mind. Because no one has ever taken care of him before. No one has ever cherished him, pampered him. Not since he was in preschool. Not since the fire.

And that's not a slight on anyone else in Dean's life, past or present. There have been people who have tried to care for him -- friends, lovers, his brother... But Dean has always shut that shit down right out of the gate. Any attempt to dote on him hits a brick wall in his psyche and boomerangs back on the giver. _Try to take care of me?_ his self-loathing snaps, _Nuh-uh. No way. I take care of you, ten times as hard, and don't you ever forget it. Take that, fucker!!___

But there's something about Cas that breezes through that brick wall likes it's a bead curtain. The force of the ex-angel's love is so strong, so steady, so inexorable, that Dean can't fight it. It washes over him like a warm sea, eddying into the broken parts of him and filling them up with bliss.

It's wonderful. It's terrible. It drives Dean absolutely fucking crazy.

Because they'll be watching a movie together in the Fortress of Deanitude and Cas will get up to grab Dean another beer 8.2 seconds before Dean was gonna realize that he wanted another beer, and his heart will sigh _lovely_ and his brain will scream _run_. He's forever mentally suspended between _I need to grab on to this wonderful man and never let him go_ and _wrong wrong wrong danger danger this is not how my life is supposed to be_. He knows Cas is the best thing that will ever happen to him in his entire life, and he knows there is no way Dean can ever deserve him.

They're always at war: the part of Dean that is ready to settle in to domestic bliss with the love of his life, and the part that's positive he needs to cut and run before Cas realizes what a mistake he's making and bails.

(There are a few parts of Dean with their own naughty agenda. But seriously: _that's not what this little story is about_.)

That scared part, that self-hating part, is a hard little stone at the center of Dean's mind. But Cas's love swirls around that stone. It bathes it, warms it, wears it away so, so slowly. Every day, every moment, every sweet act of kindness that Cas offers him, that hard little stone gets a tiny bit smaller.

One morning Dean wakes up to find Cas already in the kitchen, bent over a mug on the counter. He's stirring something, and by the concentration on his face Dean supposes that he's concocting a life-saving potion, perhaps the antidote to a coming global plague. He clears his throat, careful not to startle Cas into ruining his vital work.

"Mornin', sunshine. Whatcha got there?" he calls from the doorway.

Cas turns to him with a gummy smile. "Good morning, beloved. I'm making your coffee. I know you love those pumpkin spice lattes, but you hate going into that 'hipster trap' downtown, so I found a recipe online. I can't replicate the foamed milk without special equipment, but I--"

Dean stops his words with a kiss. Somewhere between the finger quotes around "hipster trap" and the realization that the fullness of Cas's considerable mental powers had been focused on replicating a Starbucks drink to make him happy, the last fragment of that hard little stone in Dean's mind had melted away. 

_This is right. This is forever_, he thinks, mouth still occupied with Cas's. _I need to buy this man a ring_.

**Author's Note:**

> Rebloggable link for this fic on tumblr is [here](https://blessyourhondahurley.tumblr.com/post/188066328946/october-1-a-thousand-small-ways).


End file.
